King Satan presents his new audiovisual project Black Magick Rock ’N’ Roll, where raw rock energy collides with theatrical symbolism and dark aesthetics. In this interview, he reflects on returning to musical roots, the inner tension between good and evil, and provocation as a core artistic tool. He also discusses DIY creativity, cinematic influences, and how growing up in Finland shaped his uncompromising artistic vision.

BLACK MAGICK ROCK ’N’ ROLL FEELS BOTH THEATRICAL AND RAW AT THE SAME TIME. HOW DID YOU APPROACH CREATING THIS BALANCE VISUALLY?

I like things raw and carnivalesque. I try to maintain the same balance in my music and stage shows, which I aim to translate into my videos as well. I'm as much a symbolist as I am a metalhead and a rock ’n’ roller, so the combination of theatrics and grit comes quite naturally to me.

IN YOUR DIRECTOR STATEMENT, YOU MENTION RETURNING “BACK TO BASICS.” WHAT DOES THAT IDEA PERSONALLY MEAN TO YOU ARTISTICALLY AND SPIRITUALLY?

Rock ’n’ roll is the father and mother of metal music, and arguably of modern dance music as well. There are so many genres, subgenres, and layers upon layers of categorization in music, videos, and art in general that it makes me want to vomit when I think about it all. I wanted to take this project as far back to its roots as possible without losing electronics, and what I found was rock ’n’ roll.

The same applies to ideologies, whether spiritual, materialist, religious, or philosophical. They have all been built on top of one another, often using different terminology while ultimately talking about the same things. In the end, they all stem from the same root issues. With the Black Magick Rock ’N’ Roll, I wanted to dig down to those roots and try to find a solution to them. After all, humanity hasn't managed to solve these questions in thousands of years, haha. Hence ”Back to basics”.

THE VIDEO EXPLORES THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL BENEATH ALL HUMAN MASKS. DO YOU SEE THIS CONFLICT AS SOMETHING UNIVERSAL OR DEEPLY PERSONAL?

Oh, it's both. You can see it all around the world, and everyone with at least a bit of self-awareness should recognize this dialogue within themselves as well. It's strange how ideologies centered on love often seem to generate more self-hatred and hatred toward the others, than some of those that are perceived as hateful, just because they are more accepting. Existence is quite paradoxical, which is why I’m fascinated of this trickster-archetype, that seems to be intermediary between these two extremes. In ’Black Magick Rock ’N’ Roll’ I chose Harlequin to represent the trickster. Extreme juxtapositions begin to resemble each other. Too much light will blind you, which leads back to darkness. And with accepting darkness, we will be able to see the light. It’s a horrible cliché, but my motif was ”back to basics” with a post-modern twist, so here we are, heh.

SINCE YOU DIRECT, EDIT, PRODUCE, AND PERFORM IN YOUR OWN VIDEOS, HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO SEPARATE YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST FROM YOURSELF AS A FILMMAKER?

I have always had strong and distinctive visions and ideas regarding how my artistic doings should be manifested. When I was younger, I struggled a lot to explain these to music industry professionals and film professionals and I couldn’t get the results I wanted. Not because they would’ve lacked the skill, but because they couldn’t get inside my head. This led me to learn to do these technical and production parts myself, both in music, videos and even graphics. So, with my own bands I don’t have that kind of separation. For me the music, videos and graphics are all part of same artistic continuum to express what I want to express. I do write, compose, mix, produce and record my music as well as much as I can, sometimes even completely. For me the technical process has become a big part of my artistic process as well. For me, how to edit and mix is just as important as to play an instrument or ability to sing, because it all comprises the sounds we hear in music. Same principle applies to my video making.

THE AESTHETICS OF THE VIDEO FEEL INSPIRED BY BOTH UNDERGROUND CINEMA AND CLASSIC MUSIC TELEVISION. WHICH VISUAL INFLUENCES WERE MOST PRESENT DURING PRODUCTION?

Lately, I’ve found myself enjoying isolated color choices combined with black and white. Sometimes I see dreams rendered in that way, and they’ve always felt meaningful to me, which has likely influenced my visual approach. That’s also why I wanted to use light leak lenses. As I wanted to take things “back to basics” with ’Black Magick Rock ’N’ Roll’, all the clichés and kitschy elements naturally came through, as they often do when I’m working on a musical project under the name King Satan. So I wanted to once again embrace that aspect, with a certain carnivalesque and symbolist twist that I’ve carried through my work over time.

As far as influences go, they are partly subconscious and partly conscious. With ’Black Magick Rock ’N’ Roll’, there’s a tremendous amount of influence from Rob Zombie (both his films and music videos), Alejandro Jodorowsky, and especially Terry Gilliam and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I told my cameraman that we needed to capture that kind of vibe without copying it, and I also showed him Korn’s “Here to Stay” music video as another reference, basically asking, “What if we combine these elements together with the Sin City the movie?” That’s how we arrived at the visual language I had in mind, heh.

DIY CULTURE SEEMS ESSENTIAL TO YOUR ARTISTIC IDENTITY. DO LIMITATIONS SOMETIMES HELP CREATIVITY MORE THAN LARGE BUDGETS?

It’s all relative I guess. I hate that I rarely get the budgets I want due to the fact that my music and art is not mainstream, which also makes me quite grateful that I get the budgets at all, haha. But that really forces myself to max out my creativity because I don’t want to compromise either. Larger budgets would help of course, and there are couple of videos which would’ve been much and more expensive without amazing sponsors and volunteers. Like my earlier award-winning music video for King Satan titled ’New Aeon Gospel’ which would’ve not been the same at all without them. More budget brings other kind of pressure though, so it’s never good hahah, but I can live with it if it makes the vision come reality. Like with my brand new ’Light of Darkness’ music video, where we exceeded our budget, because I didn’t really want to compromise. I think I’m better director than producer though, hahaha.

WHAT EMOTION OR REALIZATION WOULD YOU MOST LIKE VIEWERS TO LEAVE WITH AFTER WATCHING “BLACK MAGICK ROCK ’N’ ROLL”?

That the world is not so black and white. And that there are options available for extreme juxtapositions, which in all its simplicity is quite extreme itself.

FINLAND HAS A GLOBALLY RESPECTED METAL SCENE WITH A VERY DISTINCT IDENTITY. HOW HAS GROWING UP IN FINLAND SHAPED YOUR ARTISTIC WORLDVIEW?

I am from Kuopio, Eastern Finland, and when I was kid we had only couple of metalheads where I lived, Petonen district. Nowadays metal is accepted in Finland kind as of the fabric of Finnish culture identity, even it’s still not a mainstream. But in the early 2000’s and Eastern Finland, I had to constantly fight (literally, and figuratively) for the right to be a metalhead. I guess my rebellious nature stems from there, as I did enjoy a lot being an antagonist, especially as a teenager, so don’t get me wrong here. So, I think my home province had a lot to do how I shaped out to be as an artist.

I’ve been also told that my approach as an artist, especially with King Satan and its way of combining very serious, dark topics with humour and absurdism, is quite unique and rare, both among listeners and critics. Those who can see the both sides of course. I’m aware of the polarizing effect of my works too, heh. But this all seems to be especially true outside of Finland, and also within Finland to some extent. That said, to me it feels very natural, which made me always wonder why it’s perceived as unusual. I think this is because I grew up in the Savonia region of Finland, and my family is long-standing Savonian. In that culture, this kind of behaviour is quite normal: making jokes about serious things to ease existential anxiety, pain, or concern about the future, while still taking things very seriously. The phrase “clowning is serious business” could just as well be a motto of Savonia. It’s very much a trickster-like cultural mindset in so many ways.

When I was 19, I moved to Tampere, which is more southern and western in spirit, and culturally bit different. Comedy and seriousness exist, but more as separate realities. There I often found myself being misunderstood (even more so than in Savonia, haha), people were unsure when I was being serious and when I was joking, something I had assumed would be obvious. I have had always embraced this side fully, but I think it got more energised after my moving to Tampere. And as a trickster and renegade as I always has been, I embraced it fully and which is quite apparent part of my artistic world view and approach.

WHAT MAKES THE FINNISH METAL AND ALTERNATIVE SCENE DIFFERENT FROM SCENES IN OTHER COUNTRIES, IN YOUR OPINION?

It’s actually surprisingly similar everywhere at least in Europe (never been outside of Europe yet). The main difference is probably that it’s more normalised within wider society, rather than being separated into its own segment and because of that it’s more visible everywhere, even not being the most mainstream. I remember when I lived in Netherlands in my twenties, my colleagues were surprised I dated girls who were not metalheads or goths only, but hippies, jocks and ”normies” as well. This because apparently there metalheads dated only metalheads usually, and that was unheard to them to think otherwise. But this was quite normal in Finland even then, which kind of elaborates how ”normal” being metalhead was, and still is here. Granted of course, I might not be the best spokesperson on behalf of metalheads as I don’t really fit in there either. But long hair, leather jackets and band shirts usually is enough for that label.

YOUR WORK REFERENCES DIRECTORS LIKE DAVID LYNCH AND ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY. WHAT HAVE THEIR FILMS TAUGHT YOU ABOUT ARTISTIC FREEDOM?

I have always loved music videos, I grew up while watching MTV and here in Finland we had MoonTV which had lots of music shows, especially underground ones. But it was David Lynch’s ’Eraserhead’ the movie and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ’The Holy Mountain’ movie which released myself from the proverbial cage of expectations of what videos could be in general. They had completely their own voice there and it was strong, didn’t fit any categories I knew at the time, and these movies were really eye-openers for me, not only when it comes to the video making but also with music making and the whole artistic process.

I think I made ’Aura Mystica’ music video for my old band Saturnian Mist almost right after I saw ’Eraserhead’ for the first time, even I had no idea what I was doing. And I was over the moon when I think it was Metal Hammer magazine compared to that and the following Saturnian Mist videos to early Lynch and Kenneth Anger. I entered audiovisual-school right after that to learn more of video making, and audio producing.

MUSIC VIDEOS TODAY OFTEN PRIORITIZE FAST ATTENTION SPANS AND ALGORITHMS. HOW DO YOU PRESERVE ARTISTIC DEPTH IN THAT ENVIRONMENT?

With few exceptions all my music videos have been quite fast phased edits, so in that sense I feel that the world is catching up with me more than I would be catching up with the world, haha. Algorithms on the other hand is something which I find hard to work with, because it feels that the algorithms control the scenes and business now, not the people who launched the algorithms. But whether they were algorithms or some human executives calling the shots, I have always found it repulsive to follow the trends. I have only my own vision I can influence to really, and if the world comes along like it has couple of times done, it’s really great plus, but in the end, I would be doing the same things anyway, regardless of the reception.

OVER THE YEARS, HOW HAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH SHOCK AESTHETICS AND PROVOCATIVE IMAGERY EVOLVED?

I found out at very early age that the most effective way for me to get my message through is through provocation. Even it causes strong counter-reactions as well. It comes with the territory. I’m trickster, always been. And because of this all, other attempts to make myself heard have not been as effective, because those meant simply betraying the who I am really in my core. I believe that certain personalities, like yours truly, have to play with the cards they have given, and my cards are joker cards. It’s never provocation for the sake of provocation for me. I always have a message with my works, even if the message would be a question or an abstract feeling I want to deliver, there’s always a message.